The Ills of Dolphin Assisted "Therapy"

A couple of years ago, my local paper ran a heart-warming story about a couple who set up a fund-raising campaign for their young autistic son. Friends, neighbours and relatives rallied round. Eventually they raised the thousands of pounds they needed to treat him to a course of Dolphin Assisted Therapy.

Warm feelings all around. Dolphins love people – as we know from centuries of stories of the marine mammals helping sailors at sea. And children love dolphins. There are reports that Dolphin Assisted Therapy can improve hormone levels in patients, and that the high-pitched sounds that dolphins emit to echo-locate can stabilize rhythms in the human brain.

I was as happy as any other reader when I first read this story. But I began to wonder when I happened to visit one of the large marine tourist attractions in the Caribbean. People were chosen by lottery for a chance to “swim with the dolphins”. Yes, I was tempted to enter – until I watched one of the sessions.

The poor dolphins, confined in a pool, certainly seemed less than happy with both their environment and with the antics of their primate distant cousins. Was this dolphin business all bit one-sided, I began to wonder – rather too orientated to the commercial land-based mammal at the expense of the marine?

And a trio of reports published over the past few months has confirmed my worst doubts: that so-called Dolphin Assisted Therapy is bad for both dolphins – and the human patients.

Bad for humans…

The British charity Research Autism has checked out the scientific evidence for Dolphin Assisted Therapy in their area – and finds it’s miserably thin on the ground. The case for improved hormone levels melts away on close analysis; and the claims for improvements to brain-rhythms are contradictory. The only positive results seem to be anecdotal. For instance, Emily Chicken – who suffered from Rett syndrome – seemed much brighter when she returned to school; but her mother reported “after about three months I saw her going backwards.”

Well, you can understand a kid responding positively to an adventure like this – but then there are plenty of other ‘wilderness’ experiences that produce a similar effect without danger to animals or humans.

At Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, dolphin expert Lori Marino has teamed up with psychologist Scott Lilienfeld to check out Dolphin Assisted Therapy (DAT) from both angles. They too conclude: “despite DAT’s extensive promotion to the general public, the evidence that it produces enduring improvements in the core symptoms of any psychological disorder is nil.”

I’ve also been browsing through a report from Britain’s Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society. It makes pretty grim reading – concerning patients as well as dolphins. When a dolphin – or other cetacean – is penned up, its behaviour may not match the apparent smile on its face.

In 1999, they report, two people were bitten by dolphins while swimming with them in Bermuda, and required emergency hospital treatment. The following year, an 11-year old girl needed stitches after her hand was bitten by a beluga in Canada. And there are at least two more recent cases of women whose ribs were broken by captive dolphins.

Some people who advocate Dolphin Assisted Therapy recommend swimming with dolphins in the wild. That may not put as much stress on the gentle mammals, but patients swimming out to sea have to look out for other dangers, including rip tides, boats – and sharks.

And wherever they swim, there’s a chance of land-mammal and sea-mammal infecting each other. In particular, warns the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society, the feverish disease brucellosis can be passed back and forth from human to dolphin. And bear in mind that DAT patients may be physically weak to begin with…

That's bad news for humans - but dolphins suffer even more. Read on to find out how....